TITLE: THE MYSTERIOUS BEAUTY OF
GOD’S LOVE
INTRODUCTION
God goes to extraordinary lengths to
rescue the lost. The grace of salvation is directed toward those who need to be
saved. If anyone is going to level a judgment on another, it must be the
judgment of love. You have to wonder what kind of shepherd would leave 99
perfectly good sheep alone in the wilderness to find just one which is lost;
thus I title this homily “the mysterious beauty of God’s love.
BODY
My
dear people of God, the love of Christ for us is amazing. This love knows no
bounds; it is limitless. Searching for the lost
sheep of the house of Israel is the principal mission of Christ and of
Christianity. Jesus desires that no one should be lost. In the gospel of
Luke chapter nineteen verses ten He says “the son of man has come to seek and
to save what had been lost”, and in the gospel of John chapter eighteen verse
nine it was affirmed that he didn’t loss any of those given to him. Christ
cares for the repentance of the sinner; thus he gives priority to the lost more
than the righteous, because as He says in the gospel of Luke chapter five verse
thirty-two, He has come not to call the just, but to call the sinners to
repentance. Unfortunately, there is a school of
thought in today’s version of Christianity that thinks otherwise. This school
of thought is more interested in preserving the physical structures of the
Christian religion rather than its spirituality. They insist on over-bloating
the rules and demands of Christianity and end up scattering the sheep with
sanctions rather than gathering them.
The
parable of the lost sheep is very applicable to the great work of man’s
redemption. The lost sheep represents the sinner as departed from God, and
exposed to certain ruin if not brought back to him, yet not desirous to return.
Christ is earnest in bringing sinners home. In the parable of the lost piece of
silver, that which is lost is one piece, of small value compared with the rest.
Yet the woman seeks diligently till she finds it. This represents the various
means and methods God makes use of to bring lost souls home to himself, and the
Saviour’s joy on their return to him. We should then be careful that our
repentance is unto salvation!
Through the two short parables, Jesus presents the essential
nature of our God: benevolent in his love, generous in his mercy, kind towards
the wayward, extravagant in his celebration when the lost one is found. For
God, when it comes to his children, one is equal to ninety-nine. He does not
wish that even one of his children gets lost. St Paul as presented in the first reading is one of
those who experienced the joy of being ‘lost’ and ‘found’ and so is able to
say: “indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of
knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all
things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ.
God always seek to find us when we stray but on our part, we
must realize that we are lost and recognize our need for God and begin the
journey home to the embraced by divine mercy. When God’s offer of mercy is met
by our repentance, all in heaven rejoices. God’s feast is about rejoicing over
the repentant sinners. Today the lord beckons me to be found by him through the
sacrament of reconciliation.
CONCLUSION
Occasionally
we develop a feeling of self righteousness which may cause us to look down on
others for not reaching the level of spiritual heights that we have reached.
Another extreme is when we are too conscious of our failings and live in
extreme self condemnation; we feel we have no right to God’s love. However, the
evangelist in the gospel of today tells us what makes God beautiful and
different: God does not abandon us when we stray but rather he does everything
possible to bring us back to his love and fold. As Christians who know the
worth of the fathers love for us, we should sign up for the attitude of St Paul;
we should be ready to count everything as loss just to gain the love and
knowledge of Christ.
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